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Find My Friends may be one of the most helpful apps you ever use. This app can help you locate those who are near and dear to you and help them locate you. In fact, Find My Friends is an app that can even save lives.
But Find My Friends is also one of the most controversial apps from Apple. While some people think it’s a handy app for iPhones, others think it’s downright creepy. Not everyone likes the idea of an app tracking their location. Perhaps they don’t want others knowing where they are at all times, or at any time.
If you have an iPhone you should know what Find My Friends can do so you can decide whether it’s a helpful app for you.
What Find My Friends Does
Find My Friends is an app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch that can help your trusted friends see your location and let you see where they are. Your location with Find My Friends is only shared with others you invite.
You can allow your friends to track your location always or only for a limited period of time. You can also turn off Find My Friends if and when you don’t want to be found.
Find My Friends can show you the location of your friends, if they invite you. The app can let you see where others are, even if you don’t share your location with them. For example, you may want to follow the location of your children, but may not want to share your location with them.
You can share your location with up to 100 friends and follow the location of up to 100 friends.
Find My Friends can be useful when you’re waiting for someone to arrive at a restaurant, airport, or train station. Or if you want to know when they arrive home from work or school. Make sure your children are where they’re supposed to be, without pestering them. Find out when your partner leaves work or arrives home from a trip. See when your friends are nearby or arriving at your home for a visit. Meet up with friends at a concert, museum, shopping mall, park or other venue.
Setting Up Find My Friends
Find My Friends is an app that is available for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The app comes pre-loaded onto iDevices, and you can download Find My Friends from the iTunes App Store.
The app is not available for Android devices.
Choosing the Device to Share Your Location
After you open the app, sign into Find My Friends using your Apple ID. Choose which device you would like to track your location: iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. For most people, the iPhone would probably be the best choice.
If you have an Apple Watch with a cellular connection, you can have the Watch track your location. Using your Watch app on your iPhone, go to Settings => General => Location Services. Turn on Share My Location.
Sharing Your Location
After you’ve set up Find My Friends, you can invite people with whom you want to share your location. Tap Add in the app and enter the email address they use for their Apple ID to send an invitation for them to follow you.
You can share your location with your friends always, or for a limited period of time. When you invite someone and tap Send, you’ll get a choice to:
- Share for One Hour
- Share Until the End of the Day
- Share Indefinitely
After they accept your invitation, they’ll be able to see where you are using the app during the time period you’ve allowed.
Turning Off Find My Friends
There may be times when you don’t want your location to be followed by your friends. Maybe you’re surprising a friend with a party. Maybe you’re interviewing for a new job. Maybe you’re shopping for a gift. Or maybe you’d just rather not be found.
No judging.
You can turn off Find My Friends so that others can’t locate you using the app. You’ll still be able to follow others while you have turned off location sharing for yourself.
To turn off Find My Friends so your location isn’t shared, tap your name at the bottom of the screen.
Slide Share My Location off when you don’t want to be located. Slide it back on when you want to share your location again.
Finding Your Friends
If you want to use Find My Friends to find others, they must invite you to follow them and you must accept their invitation.
After your friends have allowed you to follow them, you can see their location using the Find My Friends app on your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. You can also see their location using a computer by logging into your account at icloud.com.
Your friends are listed showing how close they are to you by distance. You can also see where they are on a map.
Location Not Available
When you’re trying to find your friends using Find My Friends, you may see “Location Not Available.” There are several reasons why you may be seeing that message:
- Their battery died
- Their device is turned off
- Their device is not connected to the Internet
- They have turned off location sharing in Find My Friends
- Your device is not connected to the Internet
Notifications
One of the handiest uses for Find My Friends is Notifications. Using the app you can get a notification when one of the friends you follow arrives at or leaves a location. That way you don’t have to keep checking where they are.
You can also send a notification to your friends when you have arrived at, or leave, a location.
To notify someone, tap your name at the bottom of the Find My Friends screen. Under Current Location, tap Notify Friends.
You can decide which friends you want to notify and when you want the notification to be sent:
- Right Now
- When I Leave…
- When I Arrive
You can also share which location you want shared. For example, you can send a notification to a friend when you arrive at an airport so they know where to meet you.
Notifications can be repeated so you can send a notification every time you arrive or leave a location. Slide on Repeat Every Time to send a notification automatically. For instance, you can use Repeat Every Time to get a notification every time your child arrives at home.
Life-Saving App
Find My Friends isn’t just a convenient app, it has saved lives. Because the app shares location information automatically, it can be used to find people when they are in danger.
In one case a missing college student in Georgia was found using the Find My Friends app. He had been missing and did not answer his phone, so his friends used the Find My Friends app to locate him. They discovered him unconscious and severely injured. Time, A Missing Georgia Student’s Life May Have Been Saved by Apple’s Find My iPhone App.
In another case, a hiker in the U.K. got lost in the fog and used Find My Friends to notify his friends that he needed rescuing. Forbes, Find My Friends iPhone App Helps Save Stricken Climber.
Poll: Cool or Creepy?
Do you like the idea of using Find My Friends? Vote in The Wonder of Tech poll:
Your Thoughts
Have you ever used Find My Friends? When do you find it the most useful? Do you find the app cool or creepy? Do you like the idea of the app saving lives?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
I will say its quite creepy but not as much as it is cool. Will love to try out soon.
Hi Christopher, It will be interesting to see how you feel after you try Find My Friends. I know people who don’t like it at all, they don’t like the feeling of being tracked, even by their close friends and family.
Personally, I find great comfort in knowing that my loved ones can find me, especially if I’m even in peril. But everyone is different so you don’t have to continue to use it if you don’t want to.
I hope you are able to decide easily whether Find My Friends works well for you.
Truly it’s a life saving app, it helps everyone those who want to track their friends and gathered the information about his/her accurate location. For the easiness, quick gathered as well as most important for the security purpose it’s a perfect app. Thank you so much for the essential information and fantastic work.
Hi Smith, Yes, I’m one of the ones who thinks it’s a very cool app. I take great comfort in knowing my loved ones can find me if they ever need to or I can’t reach out to them.
I hope you enjoy using Find My Friends, Smith!